Ride the Cow, Look for the Horse

In this week’s archive edition, we discuss not-so-smartphones, “Erin” vs. “Aaron,” “who” vs. “whom,” what happens when you “overegg the pudding,” and what it means to “ride the cow, look for the horse.”

Why do some languages sound as if they’re spoken faster than others? Different languages tend to convey varying amounts of meaning in a single syllable. Mandarin and English, for example, tend to be information-dense. Consider how the simple word “bliss” is laden with meaning.

A new study finds that languages that pack less meaning into a single syllable, such as Japanese and Spanish, tend to be spoken faster in order to convey similar amounts of information in the same amount of time. Time magazine has a report:

BEHIND THE SCENES: Teachers change lives. In Martha’s case, it was Dr. Leonard Latkovski, who tutored her for 12 years in ancient Greek. Professor Latkovski was fluent in 18 languages and able to translate 14 more.

He would have been 106 years old today. Her remembrance of their relationship forms the exordium of one of her books:

Space Cadet (episode #1514) 12/24/2018: We have books for language-lovers and recommendations for history buffs. • How did the word boondoggle come to denote a wasteful project? The answer involves... [more]